A.J. Wallace, defense put Gophers in a hole

PENN STATE

October 18, 2009|By Jeff Schuler Of The Morning Call

Normally, Penn State's A.J. Wallace isn't on the field in goal-line situations.

But with Eric Decker, the Big Ten Conference's leading receiver and Wallace's defensive assignment, on the field for Minnesota on fourth-and-goal from the 2 yard line, the senior cornerback from Waldorf, Md., also found himself on the field early in the fourth quarter, trying to preserve the shutout.

"We assumed they were going to run a fade, and I was out there to compete for a jump ball," Wallace said of the match-up with Decker.

Instead, Decker blocked down as Kevin Whaley took a fourth-down toss from Adam Weber and headed for the left pylon.

He never got there.

Wallace arrived first, cutting off the Gopher running back, and linebacker Navorro Bowman closed to help stop Whaley cold at the 1, the signature play in a dominating defensive performance that gave the Nittany Lions their first conference shutout in three years.

"I told myself [that] he's not going to get there before I will," Wallace said of the footrace with Whaley for the corner. "Navorro wrapped him up and I just hit him high so he couldn't stretch for the goal line."

Wallace -- who has wiggled his way out of Joe Paterno's doghouse several times during his career, including after some academic concerns last summer -- has been splitting time at one corner with Knowledge Timmons opposite D'Anton Lynn. But this week Paterno and defensive coordinator Tom Bradley gave the 6-foot-1 Wallace the primary task of shutting down the 6-2 Decker, who came into the game with 46 catches for 689 yards and five touchdowns.

"We basically challenged A.J. Wallace to handle [Decker]," Paterno said. "Timmons is shorter [5-10] and we worried that if we put Knowledge on him he'd have trouble with some of the jump ball contests they might put us in."

Wallace proved to be equal to the task.Decker went without a catch until he slipped between safeties Drew Asterino and Nick Sukay for a 42-yard reception with 1:27 left in the third quarter. That turned out to be his only catch, and the play accounted for 30 percent of Minnesota's 138 yards in the game.

"Whenever you get told by the head coach, "Hey, you've got this guy this week,' you think about it and I think he prepared himself very well," Bowman said. "We were talking this whole week about him stepping up to the plate, and he came out and stepped up and showed everyone he was dedicated and a factor in this team being successful."

"That's as physical as I've ever seen him play," added linebacker Sean Lee, who played for the first time in four weeks. "With his talent he should play like that every week."

After the off-season adversity, Wallace said, he was determined not to "let myself down, my teammates down or my family down."

"I guess he decided, "Hey, it's got to be done a certain way, and if I'm going to play I've got to do it that way,"' Paterno said. "And when he did that I think he started to realize what it takes to be really good."

The Penn State offense gets a major assist for the shutout. The Lions controlled the ball for a whopping 41:59, their biggest time-of-possession advantage since having the ball for 42:01 in 1991 against Brigham Young.

"They can't score when they're not on the field," Bradley said with a smile.

And when the Gopher offense was on the field, it did very little. Minnesota had only 38 yards and two first downs (one on a penalty) in the first half, and finished with just seven first downs. The Gophers also ran just 40 offensive plays, the fewest by a Penn State opponent in at least 32 years.

Paterno said a key to containing Decker was whether the Lions front line could get pressure on quarterback Adam Weber without help. Although Weber was sacked just once, by Jared Odrick on Minnesota's last offensive play, the junior was ducking for cover throughout the rainy afternoon.

"From the start we felt we were going to dominate this team," Bowman said. "We weren't going to let them get anything; we weren't going to give them anything."